Green’s Dictionary of Slang

diddle v.1

[SE diddle, to jerk from side to side + didder, to shake, to quiver; the use of diddle in cit. c.1680 in sense 1 may be extended to another ostensibly ‘innocent’ nursery rhyme ‘Hey Diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle...’ given the meanings of cat n.1 (2a) and fiddle n.1 (1)]

1. to have sexual intercourse.

[UK]R. Brome Covent-Garden Weeded I i: O Madge how I do long thy thing to ding didle ding.
[UK]Gossips Braule 6: I was never down-diddl’d by a Barbers Boy.
[UK] in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads [title] Diddle, Diddle, or the kind Country Lovers.
[UK]Rambler’s Mag. Mar. 115/2: Pota potas, / I drink the lass / Who loves the pungo pinxi; / [...] / Smack smock, diddle daddle, masculinum gernus.
[UK] ‘Marrying A Maid’ in Frisky Vocalist 8: But leave me alone, I’m a precious old w----e, / And besides, I’ve been serv’d so, so often before, / That I now was resolv’d to be diddl’d no more!
[US] in T.P. Lowry Stories the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell (1994) 34: I will tell you how the boys do things. About a mile from camp lives a woman by the name of Scott, and she has two girls. One had been too near a trouser serpent and got bit. The other was brave and not afraid of snakes. Thursday some boys went over there. The old woman was sick. The oldest girl having a child, and while one of the boys diddled, the other boys shot all the chickens for Thanksgiving.
[US] in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 124: I put my hand upon her ass, [...] She says, let’s lay down on the grass / An’ diddle, diddle, diddle alla day.
[US]L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:iv 304: diddle, v. [...] 2. To copulate.
[US]‘J.M. Hall’ Anecdota Americana I 145: The youth was diddling away with the ardor of puberty.
[US]H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 291: A whore is never too tired to open her legs. Some of them can fall asleep while you diddle them.
[US] in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 60: There was a young man with a fiddle / Who asked of his girl, ‘Do you diddle?’.
[US]J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 45: Next to diddling a woman patient, there wasn’t a surer way for a doctor to jam himself up than to play around with his nurse.
[UK]‘Count Palmiro Vicarion’ Limericks 69: He could diddle a midge / Or the arch of a bridge.
[US]B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 228: I used to could diddle all night long, / but since I got the age I am, / it takes me all night to diddle.
[US]E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 500: ‘He was just seeing me home,’ the girl explained [...] ‘And practically diddlin you standing up on the front porch.’.
[US]L. Kramer Faggots 251: That dusky dinge I diddled discreetly with in Doubleday’s Non-Fiction.
[US]‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 19: Any movie that starts off with a woman being diddled by a giant katydid can’t be all bad.
[UK]Indep. Rev. 25 June 11: Imhotep [...] was caught diddling the Pharaoh’s mistress and sentenced to ‘a fate worse than death’.
[Aus](con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 58/1: Diddling in the hay with other fellas’ fillies.
[US](con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 32: The Mau-Maus [...] diddled baboons and ate their own young.

2. (orig. US, also diddle-fuck) to masturbate oneself or another; thus diddling adj., n.

[US]D. St John Memoirs of Madge Buford 35: She plunged the candle deep into its [i.e. her vagina] depths and, with deft and rapid motion of her agile hand, diddled herself.
[US] in P. Smith Letter from My Father (1978) 76: For years I played with Lydia’s ‘mary’. We would go to the movies where we diddled one another.
[US] (ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 137: A man [...] who wasn’t a diddling schoolboy in for his first lay.
[US] in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 255: There was a young girl of Batonger, / Used to diddle herself with a conger.
[US] in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 185: There was a young girl of Topeka / Who from diddling grew weaker and weaker.
[UK]‘Count Palmiro Vicarion’ Limericks 16: There was a young man from Montrose / Who could diddle himself with his toes.
[US]I. Rosenthal Sheeper 269: A curly-haired boy diddling himself.
[US]F. Hilaire Thanatos 201: To diddle a man, you got to use slip-ins.
[US]J. Roe The Same Old Grind 143: ‘Now grab your — [...] Keep doing that. Yes — diddle, diddle, diddle — ’.
[US]R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 126: With one hand she was diddling her clit.
[US]G.V. Higgins Rat on Fire (1982) 65: If I was you I would just go right back out that door and let her diddle heself in the powder room.
[US]‘Victoria Parker’ Incest Schoolgirls 🌐 Jamie hissed. Jilly slid down on the stall wall, her legs apart, her knees slightly bent, her pink panties a slash between her knees. She diddle-fucked her juicy pussy.

3. to molest sexually.

[US] in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 1: He lurked in the ditches / And diddled the bitches.
[US]C. Himes Real Cool Killers (1969) 8: Some white mother-raper up here [...] trying to diddle my little gals.
[US]Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 11: diddle (v.): To fondle sexually without actually engaging in sexual intercourse.
[US]Winick & Kinsie Lively Commerce 27: Some of these fellows would like to diddle with my breasts all day.
[US]Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 190: Diddler is [...] that which is used to diddle (= titillate) the diddley-pout = vagina.
[US](con. 1968) W.E. Merritt Where the Rivers Ran Backward 242: I didn’t diddle around with the local stuff. [...] I’m as clean as a boiled rat.
[US]F. Kellerman Stalker (2001) 534: She had seen the best of fathers brought down for diddling their daughters.
[US]T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 129: He diddled a cocker spaniel, for heaven’s sake.
[Ire]L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 37: [T]hey’d [i.e. men] all been diddled by priests.
[US]D. Winslow The Force [ebook] The fuck, they couldn’t sober up an Irish priest long enough to do a cop funeral? Or a PR who wasn’t too busy diddling a little boy?

4. (Aus.) to beat (lit. and fig.), to overcome.

[Aus]Sat. Referee (Sydney) 12 Oct. 4/6: The fact of having beaten an opponent can be described as [...] ‘diddled him,’ ‘tonked him,’ ‘settled him,’ ‘smote him,’ ‘sloshed him,’ [etc] .

In phrases

In exclamations